races divided the country itself of Shakespeare, and possibly even his blood. And, for the Jews, they formed already a large community in London, besides the notoriety of their character and literature. To this extrinsic class of evidence may also be appended the acquaintance of British readers of the present day with the same races, and which augments, if not the proof, at least its guarantees of force. But this acquaintance cannot dispense with the intrinsic class of tests. However generally recognizable the main features of these races, the usual desultory indication and analysis are not sufficient. Curiosity might assent, but full conviction would not be wrought; above all, prejudice, both personal and national, would not be vanquished. To this effect, the exploration should be not only deep in principle, but also general in scope, and systematic in procedure. The identity of the races with the characters of Shakespeare should be tested, not in some and different aspects of humanity, but comprehensively in all, and in each case, with uniformity; also, not alone in the normality of the qualities, but in their depravations, which are equally characteristic; and finally, in the mutual correspondence which the aspects should exhibit towards each other as co-parts of an organism. This triple tissue of correlations would constitute a net from which omission, or evasion, or escape could not be easy. The main lines of the inquiry will accordingly be four the Mental, the Moral, the Physical phases of human character, with, finally, the Speculative or the social, as a summary. The last department includes religion and fiction, with philosophy; the physical will be considered but in reference to manners; the moral will bear chiefly on the principle or source; the mental, on the faculty distinctive of each race. Farther, if the contrasts, in these exhaustive phases, which constitute the several races, could be likewise reduced to law, the process would attain the consummation of science. But the principle of race goes to the depths of social mystery. Suffice it, then, to rest upon some well established positions. Among them is the axiom that every organism, whether physical or moral, must be worked by three forces, consecutive in action and contrary in principle, but, after all, co-operative in the general effect. The first is productive of the mere raw material; the second, analytic or destructive of its crude texture; the third is reconstructive or productive in the proper sense. The agencies are represented in single States by classes; in international communities, like modern Europe, by races.1 Zoology has traced them in the individual body, by the names of the cellular, the muscular, and nervous tissues, and of which elements the social system should, in fact, be a repetition. With these additional criteria, respectively and relatively, it will therefore be required to show the harmony of Shakespeare. The order of procedure, in function as in history, commences with Iago and the Italian race. 'See an article entitled "Philosophy of History-Niebuhr and Lewis," in the last May number of the North British Review. CHAPTER I. IAGO AS TYPE OF THE ROMANO-ITALIC RACE. 1. THE terms of this title present a juxtaposition which may appear insulting as well as paradoxical. But any such impression could, as will be found, arise but through a common misconstruction of both Iago and the Italians. A word of previous explanation seems, however, to be requisite respecting the nationality, before applying it to the alleged type. The true character of the Italian race and nation is misconceived through the concurrence of a curious complication of fallacies. The notion, in the first place, is not based, as would be normal, on the actual condition and conduct of this people; these are virtually discarded by the name of degeneration; and this, moreover, while the only obvious cause for such a change is held to produce universally the opposite effect. In the next place, the real basis was the ancient Roman character, which by the fact of the antiquity, must be imperfectly developed, and from which, at all events, the present people were said to differ. But finally, this standard itself, as imagined, had never an existence in the real Roman world. A brief unravelment of this tissue may conduce to other ends beside the objects, ethnologic or æsthical, in question. Most the sympathy or cant of foreign countries about Italy, and so the excitement of the natives to perverse effort and distracting hope, proceed from tacit attribution to the actual nationality of full identity with, or heirship to, the storied virtues of the ancient. But these virtues of the Romans are exaggerated doubly, or through the influence of the medium and of the point of view. They can be known but through the eulogies of poets or historians, mostly native, and attentive but to politics and war. But what conception must be formed of the French or English character from the accounts of it, in these respects, by a few patriotic writers? Certainly a nation of heroes and sages. And yet the modern writers have been chastened by the consciousness of jealous supervision by each other, and by other nations; whereas, with the exception of some supple and subject Greeks, the Romans could soliloquize their praises to the world. Then, the writers thought at all but of a small and choice minority. The native histories of Rome, as far as touching national character, are histories not of the nation but of a single city; and in that city, not of the people, but of two contending castes. The subjects were throughout aristocratic or official; the events, a mere register, the res gesta of the government. Finally, the records of even this description have been reduced by time to a very few volumes. So that effectually the character transmitted us of ancient Rome is little more than a theatrical or mythical representation. And herein lies, in fact, a providence of history or social progress. The chasm of the dark ages was a gain and not a loss. It engulphed the mere humanities, Their the lower vulgarities of Rome and Greece, and left the grander parts afloat in the enchantment of a mirage. Both these nations were thus set upon the standing stage of history as an ideal example and incitement to posterity. annals, arts, philosophies, supplied a theme exhaustless-a species of suasoric-for the maturer minds; in the same manner that the Bible (besides its salvatory virtues) serves the social end of agitating and developing the popular. It is true, there is something more than self-opinion for Roman greatness; there are facts on both historical and monumental record. But here it is that the point of view has interfered with correct judgment. The majority regard antiquity with tacit reference to their own day; they make no adequate allowance for the change of scene or circumstances. Scarce is it remembered that the exploits of the Romans were achieved, with few exceptions, over savages or weak barbarians; and so the conquerors are credited with the same gentilitial eminence as would suffice to subdue the Europe of the present day as well. The fancy picture is sustained on a back-ground of roads and aqueducts, despite the rude example of the Mexicans, Peruvians, Chinese, and the fact that at Rome, too, they were the works ocial infancy it is the judgment of an age when railroads .re a synonym with civilization. Overhead is set a concourse of conflicting chiefs and clients, by way of halo which receives the name of liberty, with like propriety; since it rested on the brute slavery of half the national population, and the servitude and plunder of the known world beyond. Such, however, is the notion still prevailing of the Roman race. The second stage of the illusion, in essaying to reconcile C |